Have an old debt with Chase you never knew about?
I’ve seen several posts in the last year relating this same story. If you have an old debt with Chase, perhaps even from a decade or more ago, they will simply take it out of your present day account without any fanfare, warning, notification, or notice after the fact. Sounds only fair you say, you owe them money, right?
It’s not that simple. The present day Chase is made up of many other businesses that they have acquired over the last 20 year buying binge, including many companies that companies they have acquired have acquired. Make your head spin? It should. It means there are lots of companies that you might have done business with in the past that might have something on their books saying you owe them money, that are now part of Chase.
Let’s say for instance that you closed an account at WaMu years ago but for some reason in the split second between when all your money left the account and when it was officially closed, WaMu decided that your funds were too low and charged you a monthly fee for the privilege of having a checking account with them with a balance below the minimum. Don’t laugh, this kind of stuff happens all the time. So now WaMu has it on its books that you owe them $16.95. All of a sudden your Chase account shows a mystery debit of $16.95 plus 15 years of interest and charges … $1,132.17. See where I am going?
I’m pretty sure this behavior violates some part of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. But they obviously don’t care.
Bad bad Chase, Legal & regulatory | admin April 9, 2010
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By coakl, January 11, 2011 @ 10:14 am
This is the “right of offset.” Unfortunately, it’s perfectly legal and disclosed to each customer in their disclosures booklet.
This is why if you aren’t very good at timely payment of bills, you should never have your checking and savings accounts at the same bank where your credit cards and loans are.
By admin, January 11, 2011 @ 10:21 am
Disclosed in what type size? 5 point?
Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is reasonable. A reasonable bank would not lure people into burdensome debt with far too low minimum payments and then jack up the rates and minimum payments to generate late fees.